During a House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) questioned Brian Renfroe, National President of the National Association of Letter Carriers, about hearings in federal workers’ compensation cases.
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00:00I will now recognize the ranking member for the purpose of questioning the witnesses.
00:05Thank you, Chairman. Again, thank you all for being here with us today and for your testimonies.
00:12Mr. Winfrow, if we were to think about some of the challenges that letter carriers experience while navigating the VICA process,
00:23if you were to start with the challenges that your members experience, what are some reforms that Congress should consider that would be timely and high-quality claim process and benefit awards?
00:40Your question is very timely.
00:42As I mentioned in my opening, we have made a significant amount of progress in recent years with OWCP,
00:50but one issue that continues to be prevalent is access to physicians that treat employees, injured federal employees.
01:00And legislation has just recently been introduced entitled Improving Access to Workers' Compensation for Injured Federal Employees Act.
01:10And this is bipartisan legislation that would expand that access to include physician's assistants and nurse practitioners.
01:17It really is a common-sense solution to that problem that follows a trend that we have seen in the larger, in health care, really outside of our world around the country.
01:31It is fascinating.
01:32I think you talk about accessing physicians, and we talked about how, you know, one of the other witnesses talked about how there is no cap on who you could see in regards to the benefits.
01:50So it's fascinating to see that sort of discrepancy.
01:55Mr. Chairman, I request a unanimous consent to enter into the record a document provided by the Workers' Injury Law and Advocacy Group summarizing stories provided by workers' compensation attorneys of challenges that their clients have faced in the FECA program.
02:12Without objection.
02:13I ask for unanimous consent to enter into the record a redacted letter from OWCP informing a VECA claimant that an appeal hearing could not take place because the administration has canceled its contract for court reporters who transcribed hearings.
02:33Without objection.
02:35Mr. Winfrow, how important is it for workers to be able to have a timely and fair hearing in their cases?
02:44I think it's very important.
02:46I think it's important, of course, for the injured employee to get the benefits that the law entitles them to.
02:51I also think it's very much in the best interest of the Department of Labor and the best interest of OWCP to be able to provide those benefits as efficiently as possible.
03:00The hearing and adjudication process is a part of that for some that file claims.
03:05You mentioned that there have been recent changes in regards to the availability of court reporters due to contracts.
03:14We have seen some delayed hearings in recent months as a result of those actions.
03:19So we would very much be in favor of improving or eliminating any barrier to timely access to whatever step in the process, even if that was a step that required a hearing.
03:32Appreciate that.
03:34Ms. Hull, you've heard President Winfrow testify that the risk that letter carriers and other Postal Service employees face from heat stress, which can cause heat related illnesses such as heat cramp, organ damage, heat stroke and even death.
03:55What has your office found regarding USPS's need to protect workers from heat stress?
04:01Ms. Yes, we did a review.
04:03I think we issued the report.
04:04It was about a year ago, I believe, related to the heat issues that postal employees experience and found that obviously significant problem.
04:12We did evaluate what the Postal Service was doing to protect its employees from heat and found that they were doing a pretty good job of providing equipment and things like that to protect employees.
04:23But we found real challenges in the training area, making sure that employees were adequately trained, that training records were accurate and that employees actually completed training so that they knew when, you know, if they were experiencing symptoms that they should stop and take a break and get water and those kinds of things.
04:43So we have done work in that area and we're keeping our eye on it in case we need to do some additional work in that space.
04:51Ms. And how do you see overcoming some of these challenges with training and with the workers when we're seeing layoffs take place and folks having to take on extra routes and they have to complete it within the amount of hours they were already doing their previous routes?
05:10Ms. Yeah, I think the management has to be aware of the stress that the employees are under and manage that stress effectively.
05:17Also, I think that it's really important that the Postal Service rolls out the vehicles with air conditioning as part of the vehicle itself so that it's hard to believe that there are still vehicles on the road delivering mail that don't have air conditioning in this day and age.
05:34That's an important factor in this as well that I'm sure Mr. Renfro can speak more effectively to than even I can.
05:42I appreciate that, thank you.